SINGAPORE - Renault's Fernando Alonso pulled off an extraordinary win in the Singapore Grand Prix on Saturday, while McLaren's Lewis Hamilton extended his Formula One championship lead.
Starting from 15th on the grid after a fuel pump failure in qualifying looked to have wrecked his weekend, Alonso benefited from an early safety car period that turned the race around.
"This is a fantastic result - my first podium of the season; my first victory and I'm very happy, although I think it will take several days for me to realise what we have achieved," said Alonso. "Wining a Grand Prix here just seemed to be impossible because we missed our chance yesterday in qualifying, but we were very fortunate today and it's a superb result for the team. We chose a very aggressive strategy and we had a bit of luck, but we had the pace and the car was fantastic throughout the weekend."
The Spaniard won his first race since last year's Italian Grand Prix and the 20th of his career. Williams' Nico Rosberg was second - his best-ever grand prix finish - while Hamilton was third.
"It was a race of so many ups and downs for me," said Rosberg. "I couldn't believe it when I saw that the safety car had come out just after the team had called me in for my stop and I thought that's the end of it. Before my stop-go penalty, I just had to push like mad and do qualifying lap after qualifying lap and I managed to build enough of a gap to complete my second stop and hold on to second place. With a handful or laps to go in the most physical race this year and a car in your mirrors, time goes amazingly slowly, but for once everything went our way. I think Frank will have to wear his lucky tartan trousers again!"
Hamilton extended his championship lead to seven points due to a remarkable turn of events that cost title rival Felipe Massa of Ferrari any points.
The Brazilian led the early part of the race from the pole position, but his race was ruined when he pitted after the end of a safety car period at the start of lap 20.
Massa pulled away from his stop prematurely, taking the fuel rig and hose with him up the pit lane, knocking over one of his mechanics - who was taken for medical treatment - and almost colliding with another car as he pulled away from the garage.
By the time the Ferrari crew was able to sprint the length of pit lane and wrestle the rig out of the waiting car, Massa had dropped from the lead to 18th and last.
He then incurred a drive-through penalty for an "unsafe release from a pit stop." Massa finished in 13th place.
It was a dismal race for Ferrari, with reigning world champion Kimi Raikkonen crashing out on the 58th of 61 laps. The Italian team's pointless finish and Hamilton's third place lifted McLaren atop the constructors' standings by one point.
"A positive end to a difficult weekend at this fantastic new venue," said Hamilton. "After the second re-start, I tried to stay as close as possible behind Nico; however, I didn't want to take chances - particularly as the Ferraris were outside the points. We're going to approach the next few races exactly the same as we have this one. I have no doubts we have a competitive package to compete with (Ferrari) but without a doubt it will be a very tough battle."
Toyota's Timo Glock was fourth and Toro Rosso's Sebastian Vettel took fifth. In sixth was BMW's Nick Heidfeld, ahead of Red Bull's David Coulthard and Williams' Kazuki Nakajima.
Following the race, Toyota filed a protest against Vettel, claiming the Toro Rosso driver was released into the path of their driver, Glock, in an unsafe manner during one of their pit stops. Glock finished ahead of Vettel and any subsequent penalty would not have earned them any more points but Toyota were hoping to maintain further extend the buffer between them and Toro Rosso in the standings. Race stewards reviewed the incident and decided no further action needed to be taken.
Rosberg led the race and BMW's Robert Kubica was fourth after the first set of stops and safety-car period. But they were subsequently penalized with stop-go penalties for pitting under safety car conditions before clearance was given. They were forced into those stops due to lack of fuel.
Rosberg got the benefit of delaying his stop-go penalty for a few laps at the front of the field, so even after his penalty he emerged only just behind Alonso.
Red Bull's Mark Webber was running in second place, only a second behind Alonso when his car lost seventh gear and he was forced to retire in the mid-part of the race.
The safety car was deployed again on lap 52 after Force India's Adrian Sutil hit a barrier and blocked turn 18. That stacked the whole field together, completely negating the 23.5-second lead that Alonso had built.
However, the Spaniard immediately sprinted away from the field upon resumption of racing and was untroubled in winning by 2.9 seconds.